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The focus of
this lesson is to critically analyze documents; reading between
the lines and putting yourself in the shoes of individuals who
lived through difficult times. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
and Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse are examples of how people
endure hardhips and the human spirit prevails. These books will
form the foundation for this activity.
1. Farming
in the 1930s
Listen to interviews with men who lived and farmed during the Dust Bowl era.
2. Dust
Bowl Interactive
Documentary photographs show how the dust bowl battered human life, while
modern photos and interviews tell the story remembered by survivors.
3. Compare
and contrast the imagery of these excerpts from the Grapes
of Wrath by John Steinbeck and Out of the Dust by
Karen Hesse with eyewitness accounts from Farming
in the 1930s and the Dust
Bowl Interactive. Your paper should be at least two pages.
1.
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Chapter One |
2.
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Chapter Seventeen |
3.
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Chapter Twenty |
| "The
sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line
of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds
appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any
more." |
"The
cars of the migrant people crawled out of the side roads onto
the great cross-country highway, and they took the migrant
way West. In the daylight they scuttled like bugs to the westward;
and as the dark caught them, they clustered like bugs near
to shelter and to water.... In the evening a strange thing
happened: the twenty families became one family, the children
were children of all." |
"Tom
said, 'Back home some fellas come through with han'bills-orange
ones. Says they need lots a people out here to work the crops'....
The young man laughed. 'They say they's three hundred thousan'
us folks here, an' I bet ever' dam' family seen them han'biils.' " |
4.
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Fifty Miles South of Home |
5.
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
First Rain |
6.
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Homeward Bound |
"In
Amarillo
wind
blew plate-glass windows in,
tore electric signs down
ripped wheat
straight out of the ground." |
"I
hear the first drops.
Like the tapping of a stranger
at the door of a dream,
the rain changes everything.
It strokes the roof,
streaking the dusty tin,
ponging,
a concert of rain notes,
spilling from the gutters,
gushing through the gullies,
soaking into the thirsty earth outside." |
"Getting
away,
it wasn't any better.
Just different.
And lonely.
Lonelier than the wind.
Emptier than the sky.
More silent than dust,
piled in drifts between me
and my
father."
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1.
Students will read the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and Out
of the Dust by Karen Hesse.
2. Students will write a paper comparing and contrasting the imagery
from the book with eyewitness accounts. |
